Observations, not answers

You’re no fun anymore….

Over the course of the web comic, Sinfest, a female character who started out as willing eye-candy for the male characters [and certainly, the male audience], has changed — hairstyle, behaviors, values, clothing choices — to the bewilderment of characters who, while certainly exhibiting some changes over the comic’s run, have become more entrenched in their behaviors and values. Conversations that had once been based in shared attitudes are now awkward. New characters are becoming more important, and other older characters are showing some cracks in previously glossy, predictable carapaces.

And then there’s the real world — in my lifetime, companies have been uprooting themselves and migrating to wherever the workers are cheaper [and yes, I know this has happened in other eras, but the shifts across continents seem more dramatic] and cheap shipping means that, perversely, it’s more economically feasible to order something from another country than it is to get it from a farm down the road….

Well, “cheaper” until that ‘milk’ turns out to be powdered countertop material and your beefburger turns out to have been the horse that came in last place once too often. “Cheaper” until your assembly workers are drinking pesticide, or striking, or learning how much money is being made from their labour. When individuals realize their own worth, and realize it is more than what their paychecks or overseers say, “profit centers” become much more dicey propositions….and either those organizations need to evolve or move on. [Or get more weaponry, or sell more antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds…..]

Once the Chinese industrialize Africa, will we have finally run out of places for the factories to move in their quest for workers who won’t demand too much?